


Fixing a Memory

by seekingferret



Category: Nuit d'ivresse - Hector Berlioz (Song)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-20
Updated: 2014-06-20
Packaged: 2018-02-05 10:25:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1815208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seekingferret/pseuds/seekingferret
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ah, doomed young love. There's nothing like it in the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fixing a Memory

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Quillori](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quillori/gifts).



They bask in the smells and sounds of springtime. The purple lilacs, cloyingly sweet, press down on their nostrils, fighting for attention against the Easter lilies and daffodils. The man kneels down by a lone yellow rose, early blooming, and gestures as if he's planning to pluck it out of the soil, his fingers pinched around its thin, thorny stem. The woman gasps in mock horror and pulls his hand away, bursting into giddy laughter. 

"I surrender, Edie!" he says, letting his hand be moved away from the rose. He takes a deep breath, the tender and thin sweetness of the rose pushing the lilac fragrance out of his nose. Grinning, he uses his free hand to shove her soft face into the petals of the rose. She gasps again, this time in delight. 

"Oh, but it's so beautiful." She gives it another sniff, then stands up to appraise the flower from further away. It sits in the center of the bed like it knows that it is special. The other flowers give it deference as if it were royalty, maintaining a dignified distance from its regal and stately presence. A junky moving van rumbles down the road behind them, but Edie doesn't notice until it's right at her back, when the noise penetrates her reverie and makes her jump in surprise. In an instant, she decides she has had enough of flowers. 

"It's getting dark, Neal. We should get something to eat before it's too late. The diner's only over the next hill. You can get a milkshake and a burger. I'll get a salad and I'll share your fries." She is teasing him. She'll get a double cheeseburger and he'll get a veggie sandwich and look longingly at her plate the whole time. 

Neal stands up and looks longingly at the single rose. "It's so beautiful out here. Everything about this night is perfect. Me and my girl beneath the full moon, the flowers in bloom, the birds singing, her eyes dancing. Nothing could ruin this moment."

"Don't tempt fate," she murmurs. She slips her hand into his and leads him away from the flower bed. He only drags his feet a little bit. They climb the hill together, staying on the right sidewalk though few cars interrupt their walk. A soft breeze tickles their ears, keeping them cool. Neal stops for a moment at the top of the hill and turns to face Edie. He grabs her gently by the shoulder and repositions her so she is standing beneath the rising moon. He paces backward, one step and then another, until he is satisfied with the view. He watches her as if he is trying to fix the memory in his head for good, then finally nods in approval.

"Your eyes are beautiful in the moonlight," he says, and her cheeks glow fierce incarnadine. He tiptoes back to her side and kisses her. His lips barely touch hers. She barely kisses back, his breath sweet and earthy and organic in her mouth, pushing back against the cloying lilac scent that still presses down from all around them. 

She turns her head away from him down the road. The diner is at the bottom of the hill, not more than an eighth of a mile from where they stand. A big neon sign announces its fare, as if anyone in Tenneyville needed help with the menu. The food at the Tenney Diner hasn't changed in years. It is constant like the moon, like the spring lilacs and the autumn rains. She will miss that constancy when she is gone, she thinks, and almost says it aloud before she catches herself. A childish impulse to race Neal down the hill seizes her and she almost acts on that thought, too. 

"My heart is skipping a beat," she confesses to him instead. His smile glows even brighter. "Mine too," he admits. She is silent after this, unsure what to say, and he follows her lead as they stroll down the hill and into the diner. 

Jackie greets them at the door and ushers them to the same booth she always seats them at if it's not taken. Edie sits across from Neal, looking at his handsome face instead of checking out the menu. His features are squarish, but not blocky. His chin is gently rounded and smooth. His eyebrows are meticulously neat, a deliberate accent on his broad, soulful eyes. She has spent many hours enjoying his countenance with a phrenologist's eagerness.

"Edie'll have her usual," Neal says, flipping his eyes toward her momentarily as if daring her to object. It makes her furious when he orders for her without asking first, even if he gets it right. It makes her furious when he makes assumptions about her choices. He is very careful not to deny her any real autonomy, to prove that he respects her for her mind, but he still finds ways to speak on her behalf when he thinks she'll let him get away with it. She sighs. Maybe that's what relationships are about. Maybe she will have to learn to let him speak for her, and learn how to speak for him.

"And I'll have the veggie sub," he adds in a voice that betrays his obvious frustration. "I'm on a diet. Coach says I have to lose ten pounds this summer." He is not heavy. His body is sleek and athletic, and Neal thinks the varsity coach is not concerned about his weight as much as he is about an unexplained lethargia that afflicted Neal in the last several games of the past season, costing them the championship. Coach Collins believes a diet richer in vitamins and minerals will give him more energy on the field. The price Neal is paying for this discipline is a tragic end to cheeseburgers and milkshakes. 

Jackie leaves them alone to walk the order into the kitchen. She doesn't seem chatty tonight, for whatever reason. She'll probably leave them alone until the food is ready, which is what Edie wants. She wants to be alone with her love. She reaches across the table and rests her hand on top of his, wanting the physical contact. His hand adjusts slightly, until he is squeezing her hand, just enough for her to be able to feel it. Her skin tingles in ripples that emanate from that point of contact.

"Are you doing anything tomorrow?" Neal asks. Edie tenses and slips her hand away from his. She tries belatedly to mask her disengagement by scratching her nose. Neal doesn't seem to notice, either the tensing or the cover maneuver.

"Not much. Why?" Edie feels certain that she is failing at nonchalance. She wants tonight to be about tonight. She wants to glory in feeling sexy and being in love. The world is beautiful and it smells beautiful and for one night it seems to revolve around her and Neal. 

"No real reason. I was thinking we could go out driving in the woods, find a nice quiet spot, then, you know... wait and see if a monster comes to eat us for our sins." He grinned at her. She couldn't resist grinning back, thinking of other trips to the woods outside town. Not only with Neal. 

"Maybe," she says, stalling for time. "We can talk about it tomorrow." Abruptly, she changed the subject. "I was curious about that rose, since we pass it every time we come here, so I looked up the breed. It's a Peace Rose, believe it or not. Think of that. Any rose is a bringer of peace and happiness to those lucky enough to sit in its presence, so a rose worthy enough to be called the Peace Rose must be something special. It was named at the end of World War II, after its cultivator sent roses to grow in both Axis and Allied countries."

"The Peace Rose sits all by itself in the middle of the flower bed. There must be a metaphor in that." He crinkled his nose in contemplation. It was a very cute gesture, Edie thought.

"True peace brooks no compromises?"

"The fighter for peace is a lonely warrior?"

"We won't find peace until we shed all the ugliness of war?"

"The Peace Rose stands apart from the rows of tombstones." 

"A pun! I surrender. Apparently each of the delegates to the convention that created the United Nations was given a Peace Rose as an emblem of inspiration. It's nice to think that that emblem has spread all around the world, and continues to inspire with its beauty."

"Well, I'm glad I didn't pluck it for real," Neal says, as Jackie arrives with their food. She balances the cheeseburger plate in her left hand and the vegetable sub in her right. Edie inhales the greasy, succulent aroma of her diner cheeseburger. 

"The smell of this cheeseburger is amazing. I honestly cannot think of a more pleasant smell in the world. The rose's sweetness is a pale shadow of this."

"Only you would talk about a cheeseburger the way other people talk about wine."

"Me, my boy, and a double cheeseburger. Everything about this night is perfect. Nothing could ruin this moment."

"Don't tempt fate," he says, and they both laugh, because everything is perfect, except for Neal's veggie sub, which he barely manages to eat half of before setting it aside to stare longingly into Edie's eyes, and into the buns of her cheeseburger. He looks like he has something to say to her, but he doesn't, and he continues watching her as she finishes her meal. His face, cheeks wrinkled and smile flat, looks like he thinks there's some answer he's searching for hidden in her visage, waiting for his exegesis. The answer remains elusive. All he discovers is a bit of onion stuck to her lower lip, brownish-white against the brilliant dark red of her date night lipstick. He reaches across the table and lifts it off of her lip. 

After her lip is repristinated, he leans in for a gentle kiss. She returns his peck eagerly, as if searching for her own answer in his face. She seems to find it, or at least something, for after a moment she pursues the kiss with greater ferocity. Her kiss is meaty, garlicky, oily, and yet there is still a faint hint of the Peace Rose on it, or at least Neal imagines he can detect it. He savors it, the scent of a real woman in love. 

"Okay, I'm finished eating." Edie sets down her fork with a solid plink. She gets up out of the booth and marches over to the register to pay. Neal scrambles after her. The check is the same it always is; Edie has exact change ready for Jackie at the register, down to the penny. 

"Look at that. It's a steel penny, from World War II, when they had a copper shortage. My papa always said those were good luck. Make a wish!" Jackie looks wistfully at the coin for a second, then drops it into the register with the rest of the change. "Now you two have a good night, dears."

Neal is still thinking about the steel penny. "I wish we can go get a drink together now at O'Malley's"

"Your wish is my command, master," she purrs. This is as inevitable a part of this beautiful evening as all the rest, she knows, so there's no point in trying to put it off. As they walk back onto the street, the moon casts a shadow behind them. 

"Just one drink, though. Okay, Neal? Can you promise me that?"

He stops short in the street. Oh, she realizes, or maybe she already knew: the fight's going to start before the drinking tonight. "I can drink as much as I damn well want to," he says. It is not quite loud enough to be a shout, but it is forceful enough. "I know how to handle my liquor. You always say that I can't, that drinking turns me into some kind of monster, but that's a lie. Do you want to know what turns me into a monster? You do! With your nagging and your grimaces. You're always judging me, everything I do. It makes me paranoid, and then it makes me angry." 

"You make yourself paranoid and angry, and then you drink and the alcohol makes it worse. You're always reading things into my face that aren't there. You've decided that I'm judging you even when I tell you that I'm not. How many times do I have to say that before you believe me?"

"So I'm just paranoid now? And when I asked what your plans were for tomorrow and you immediately tried to change the subject, that was just my paranoia? And when I ordered your dinner, the same dinner you get every single damned time we go that diner, by the way, Jackie could have ordered that for you without even asking, you gave me the death glare to end all death glares. I just want you to love me for who I am, not for who you wish I was. That's all I ever wanted from you. Wasn't my love for you enough to deserve that much?"

Oh, she realizes at last: the fight is not about the alcohol. It's about all the things she'd believed she was keeping from him. He noticed how she tensed up when he asked about her plans for tomorrow. He noticed when she almost said farewell to the lilacs aloud. He noticed when she kept talking too much about the single rose. He's figured out that she's leaving and he's giving her his going away present. Well, she might as well accept it in the spirit offered. A clean break, no connection to leave behind. In his own strange way, it's one of the sweeter things he's ever done for her. 

"I can't believe you said that to me," is what she says out loud, tears coming unbidden to her eyes. "All I wanted was for one last," no point in being coy, "perfect night with you before I," sob, "leave town. No thinking about tomorrow, no thinking about yesterday, just living in the moment for a couple of hours. I guess we couldn't manage that, huh?"

"I guess not."

 

Many years later, Edie tried to think back to see what she could remember of that night. The answer was everything. The smells, the colors, the sounds, it all came back as soon as she searched for the memory.


End file.
